150 IRRIGATION FARMING. 



dreds of thousands of men to manage them. An im- 

 mense dam extends across the Nile near Cairo, which 

 raises its waters into a vast canal through which they 

 are allowed to flow out into subordinate canals over the 

 irivat delta. There are some steam pumps used in 

 Egyptian irrigation, but by far the greater part of the 

 country is irrigated now as it was in the days of the 

 Pharaohs. This is by means of the shadoof and sakiych. 

 All over Egypt may be seen men naked, to the waist 

 standing knee-deep in water with a basket-work bucket 

 hung by ropes between them. With a swinging motion 

 they scoop the water from the river into this bucket and 

 swing it up to a canal on a higher level, from whence it 

 runs off into the fields. The wate'r is often drawn from 

 this canal into a higher ditch in the same way, and thus 

 by a series of planes it is conducted so that none is lost. 

 After the water is taken out of the great canals, it is 

 spread over the fields in little ponds, and the flat fields 

 are often divided into small squares by means of embank- 

 ments of earth one foot in hight which run around 

 them like fences, and which can be opened or closed to 

 regulate the hight of the water within them. The ris- 

 ing of the Kile begins in June, and during the summer 

 nmeh of Egypt is one vast lake. It remains so through 

 September, and subsides toward the Litter part of 

 October. It is at this time that the water is conducted 

 into this vast network of canals, arid is carefully carried 

 over the cultivatable lands. 



In Spain the system for irrigation of meadow lands 

 most commonly applied in the northern provinces is by 

 inclined channels, or the system of spike channels. The 

 distribution channels are devised nearly in the sense of 

 the greatest slopeness of the grounds. The irrigation 

 channels connect with them and spread out from riirlit 

 to left. A rapid sectional change takes place in the dis- 

 tribution channels at the point where they separate into 



